


Gondolas for Your Loss

by MJ_Torchwood



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Implied/Referenced Character Death, POV Alternating, Tony Stark Is a Good Bro, difficult family relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:55:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24902701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MJ_Torchwood/pseuds/MJ_Torchwood
Summary: You're supposed to be sad when a family member dies. When you don't, condolences just feel wrong.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Tony Stark, Clint Barton/Undisclosed
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	Gondolas for Your Loss

_Tony’s POV_

Tony made sure Clint was alone on the communal floor before he went up. Perks of having an AI. As he got off the elevator, he walked toward the kitchen, getting a cup of coffee before turning toward the living room. _Act casual, this is totally normal…_

He sat down in a chair perpendicular to the couch where Clint was sprawled with a book, keeping his face in Clint’s line of sight. Clint glanced up at the movement.

“Stark.” _Last names, okay, I can work with that._

“Barton.” Tony sipped his coffee and poked at his StarkPad while Clint returned to his book. Eventually, Tony judged enough time had passed that he could broach the subject without it seeming like it was the reason he came to the team floor.

Setting his coffee cup down on the coffee table, he waved his StarkPad in the air slightly. “Hey, Barton?”

“I got my ears in. What’s up?” Clint marked his place in his book and shifted to give Tony his attention.

_All right, Stark, you can do this._

“So, I have JARVIS monitoring the internet for news about all of us. Good, bad, weird tabloid speculations, you would not believe the number of people who claim to be carrying Captain America’s love child at any given moment, seriously, someone needs to sit Cap down and have the talk with him. Makes it easier for the PR teams to keep on top of things…

“Anyway, J found this obituary from a small town in Ohio for a guy named Charles Bernard Barton. I wasn’t sure if you saw it, or if it was him, or---”

“Yeah.” Clint’s soft voice interrupted Tony’s rambling. _Thankfully_.

“What?”

“Yeah, I saw. Yeah, it’s my brother.”

“Oh, okay, um, do the others know? Do you _want_ the others to know?”

“Pretty sure Nat knows because she’s Nat but otherwise, no.”

“Okay. Well, then. Gondolas on your loss.”

Clint looked confused, reached up to adjust his hearing aids. “Gondolas?”

“Yep. Venetian boats. For when you aren’t sure condolences are the right response to someone’s loss.”

“Okay…” Clint still looked confused, but Tony nodded, shrugged, and retrieved his coffee. It was a subtle indication that the conversation could continue, or end, but it was up to Clint to decide what he wanted.

_Clint’s POV_

_What did he want?_

“He was my older brother.” There, a statement of fact, relatively harmless. Stark makes a non-committal hum, takes another sip of his coffee.

“He protected me. When our dad was abusive, and after… in the foster homes, and when he ran away to the circus, he took me with him…” Clint tried not to sound like he was justifying what came next, like he wasn’t trying to convince Stark ( _or himself?_ ) that Barney was good brother. He could feel Stark’s attention on him, even though Clint refused to look up. He was fairly certain Stark wouldn’t be looking at him anyway, allowing him the dignity of working through _whatever this feeling was_ without having someone’s eyes on him.

“He just stole from the circus, and he got me blamed for it, and when I tried to stop him, he shot me and left me to die, and…” The words stop coming.

“I get it,” Tony said. “I mean, I don’t _get it_ , but I get it. They’re your family, but…”

It’s times like these that Clint gets to see _Tony_ , not _Stark_ , not _Iron Man_ , not any of the other personas he uses most of the time. He remembers reading/skimming a file on Tony, remembers the photos of Howard, Maria, and Tony that always looked (were) staged for the press. He wonders now what their facial expressions looked like once the cameras left.

“Yeah. They’re family but.” Clint makes the period obvious, a full-stop as it’s called in Britain. The term seems incredibly appropriate right now. They lapse into silence again, Stark drinking his coffee and tapping away. Clint is debating returning to his book, but the conversation feels unfinished.

“I’m not going to the funeral.” He doesn’t feel guilty for saying that. (Does he?)

“You want to go to Venice?” Stark asks.

“Why, are you gonna steer me around in a gondola and serenade me?” Clint’s teasing, the mental image of Tony dressed as a gondolier making him smirk.

“Hey! I’ll have you know I have a lovely singing voice!” Stark is mock-offended. “But I thought you might have someone else you’d want to see handle a pole?” He’s waggling his eyebrows, and Clint bites back a snort.

“Maybe.” He knows who Tony means, but he’s not sure if their “friends with benefits” arrangement extends to Venice vacations.

“Well, if you change your mind, just let JARVIS know, he’ll get the tickets set up.” Tony drains his mug and stands, heading to the kitchen to drop the mug in the sink before heading back toward the elevator.

Two weeks later, Tony was in his workshop, refining the gauntlets on the latest Iron Man suit.

“Sir, you have an incoming Avengers text,” JARVIS announced, temporarily lowering the volume on _The Rain Song_.

“Let’s hear it,” Tony muttered, not even looking up.

“It’s an image, Sir.”

That got Tony’s attention. He looked up to see a holographic image of on Clint Barton sprawled in a gondola, facial expression caught either mid-word or mid-laugh. Judging by the angle, whoever took the picture was the one standing and guiding the boat.

“J, save that to my _Christmas Card_ file.”

“Of course, Sir.”

Tony smiled and turned back to the gauntlet as the music swelled.

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this came from the death of a family member in 2018. We weren't close, but people thought we should be. So, I didn't tell people. Instead, I borrowed Clint and Tony and worked through my feelings my way.


End file.
